The government’s “bullish” and “macho” approach to Brexit should not stop Conservative backbenchers from tabling amendments to the crucial repeal bill, a leading Tory remainer has said.
Former minister Anna Soubry said Theresa May must put an end to a governmental attitude that suggests that scrutinising the bill, which will transfer EU law into UK law, would be “weird” or “treacherous”.
She said she may support amendments to the legislation as it makes its way through parliament.
“What you’re basically saying is that, for some reason, when it comes to Brexit, you stop doing your fundamental job as a member of parliament, which is to scrutinise legislation and, if you need to, add your name to amendments,” Soubry said.
“This is not revolutionary – all manner of people have been doing that quite properly for centuries, and indeed there are a number of people now in government who’ve got a rather fine history of defying their government in ways certainly the likes of me have never done.
“So there’s nothing weird and there’s certainly nothing treacherous about putting down amendments … It’s called democracy.”
Soubry added that no Conservative MPs plan to vote against the bill at its second reading. She said suggestions of a rebellion were “an absolute nonsense”, as she called on the prime minister to build a consensus over Brexit.
MPs return to Westminster this week and are to debate the repeal bill on Thursday, with votes on its second reading expected on Monday next week.
Labour has said it could vote against the bill, prompting warnings by Tory whips that any rebellion by remain-backing Conservative MPs could be seen as support for Jeremy Corbyn.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Soubry said there had been discussions on the matter going on in private and in public, adding: “It’s an absolute nonsense. I don’t know any Conservative member of parliament that isn’t going to vote for this bill at second reading.
“I thought we had abandoned this sort of rather bullish, rather macho way of doing business over Brexit.”
Soubry said she believed that May was not aware of briefings against Tory MPs.
“I very much hope that Theresa will take control of all these sorts of aspects, so that she makes sure that the way the government is operating, and this bullish, macho sort of attitude that if you don’t fall into line and get behind something then somehow you’re going to be thwarting the will of the people, that sort of rhetoric has got to stop,” said Soubry.
“I know that she understands the need to build a consensus and that everything has changed since the general election in June.”
Speaking later on the same programme, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat former deputy prime minister during the 2010-15 coalition government, accused the government of “playing Russian roulette with the wellbeing of the British people” with its approach to Brexit negotiations.
Clegg said he felt that the government had not made any progress since triggering article 50 earlier this year, with wrangling over the divorce bill having been the one area in which meaningful discussion had taken place.
Commenting on the government’s approach, Clegg criticised “this idea that from one night to the next you can sort of switch off all the arrangements that have existed for 40 years with our largest trading markets, which is bound up with everything from the way we fish our sea to the way we harvest our crops in our fields, the way we manufacture widgets in factories, the way we drink, the quality of our drinking water [and] the quality of our air.”
There were some in the government who seemed to believe they could tell the EU to “bog off and we will be fine on our own”, Clegg said. “What worries me is that they think they can use that and deploy that as a threat to the other 27 [EU member states]. I think if they do that, which is what I suspect this government will do in the coming months, the 27 will say, well, you are on your own then.”
Labour’s shadow international trade secretary, Barry Gardiner, said his party’s strategy was to recreate some of the links to Europe that Brexit would destroy. But he denied a plan to try to turn transition arrangements into a permanent solution, insisting that the party would honour the democratic decision of the British people in the Brexit referendum.
“We stay in a customs union, not the customs union,” he said.
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